It is known that bread baking is difficult in the home. This is because the housewife finds it difficult to dissolve the bread materials such as flour, yeast, sugar and salt in water and blend them.
Commonly, the bread baking process is divided into five steps. In the first step, the main materials such as flour, yeast, sugar and salt are mixed in water and kneaded. In the second step the materials kneaded in the first step are fermented at 30.degree.-35.degree.C to swell. In the third step a swollen mass obtained in the second step is squeezed to eliminate the gas therein. In the fourth step the product of the third step is again fermented at 35.degree.-40.degree.C. In the fifth step, the mass which has gone through the second fermentation is baked at 180.degree.-200.degree.C.
Usually the first step takes place as follows. The main material, i.e. flour, is piled up on a rolling board. Specified amounts of sugar, yeast, salt and water are put into the middle of the pile and the surrounding flour is slowly collapsed to blend. Next, the materials thus blended are kneaded together. In kneading them, a strong force is necessary on account of gluten, i.e. a highly viscous substance being present in the flour. The kneading process is a repetition of the following cycle, i.e. blending, folding and tearing of the material, and then hurling the torn mass against the rolling board. In such a process, the mass, initially sticky, becomes increasingly plastic after approximately fifteen minutes of repeated kneading and turns into a glossy material such as the Japanese "mochi," as a result of the gluten in the flour making the mass viscous during the kneading process. Kneading is absolutely necessary for the formation of good bread. It is commonly admitted that the longer the kneading time, e.g. thirty minutes or one hour, the better the bread. At a massproduction baker, various devices electrically or mechanically perform the kneading process rather than by the use of manpower.
In all such cases however, large-scale equipment, and therefore a great amount of power, is needed for this purpose. Thus, it would be practically impossible for the housewife to be provided with such equipment for home baking.
Meanwhile, the demand remains, and in fact is steadily mounting, for the housewife to serve home-baked hot and fresh from the oven to the family at meals. As explained above however, it is difficult to provide home-baked bread, because there is no simple device available that enables the easy achievement in the home of the process of dissolving in water, and kneading the flour, yeast, sugar and salt, and because performing such process manually, at least on a regular basis, is too strenuous for the housewife.